


Their love carved in a circle of silver

by adrift_me



Series: When in doubt, return to the crossroads [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Character death is very mild and not really sad, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Gravebone mentioned, M/M, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrift_me/pseuds/adrift_me
Summary: Dumbledore shares a memory with Harry, a memory about someone who didn't let terrible events of his past rule his life, filling it with love and happiness instead. A ficlet with the connection of a certain Credence Barebone, Percival Graves and a whole magical world they had no ties to.





	Their love carved in a circle of silver

**Author's Note:**

> Struggling my way through the exam session, and I just had to write something to relax a little. So here is a shameless self-indulgent ficlet, also dedicated to [angst-wizard](https://angst-wizard.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://accio-toffy.tumblr.com/).

“Harry, thank you for coming,” Dumbledore gestured in the air, inviting him to sit down in his usual seat at the desk. Harry felt the heat flush his cheeks, shame curling in his chest. It was the second time he came without Slughorn’s memories and it clawed at him unpleasantly. Just a few minutes and he will have to try and explain himself to Dumbledore about how he attempted to get the memories but kept on failing.

The question about this particular memory, however, never came.

“Harry, I would like to steer our conversation slightly away from Voldemort today. I have prepared one memory which has little to do with Tom’s past. It is more about what his future could be like, had his life taken another turn. And for that matter I have an excellent example.”

Dumbledore revealed a small glass vial with iridescent pearly memory swirling inside it. Lightly he poured the memory in the Pensieve and at once it began whirling and unfolding a picture of the past. With a trained movement Harry dived his face into the liquid, falling straight back into Dumbledore’s office.

He stood aside and looked around. Apart from real Dumbledore, who followed him in the Pensieve, there was the professor’s other self and a stranger, a man Harry had never seen before. The stranger was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, a vintage-like suit and a top hat, all coloured with black. His hair was a long curly mess of black tangles, peeking from under the hat. His face was extraordinary, Harry noted, strangely angled, and his skin looked like it was meant to be older but forgot how to age. He had sad heavy eyes which stared at Dumbledore across the desk.

“My sincere condolences, my dear boy,” the professor said, addressing the stranger. The man’s full lips twitched a little but never smiled. They were pressed together instead, as if he was trying to avoid crying.

“I see you are still wearing his ring,” Dumbledore nodded at the stranger’s hands. The man twisted a large ornate silver ring around his finger.

“I haven’t taken it off since I was 25. When he gifted it to me,” the stranger’s voice was oddly high and scratchy as he explained. Dumbledore, both the one from the memory and the one standing beside Harry, smiled fondly.

“The day you got married.”

“Yes.”

Harry arched an eyebrow, looking quizzically at his mentor. Dumbledore nodded and turned his attention back to the conversation.

The memory Dumbledore leaned in a little, offering a gentle smile to the stranger. Harry didn’t fail to recognize this look; he saw it whenever the professor spoke of love and friendship.

“Percival was a great man, my boy. Do not mourn him, but remember him in he fondest of ways. After all, it is you who these memories belong to.”

“Newt said something quite similar.”

“Ah. Mister Scamander always knew what to say even if he did speak quite little.”

The remark made Credence chuckle lowly. Silence fell between the two men.

“I hear there is a war coming, sir,” the man said, leaning back in his seat, fingers still resting on the intricate carving of his wedding ring. Dumbledore’s face fell a little and he nodded gravely.

“It is indeed, my boy. You need not trouble yourself with it, however. It is my personal request, Credence.”

“Percival would have liked me to help,” the man objected. Dumbledore’s lips stretched into a smile once more.

“He would have. He was a fighter, to the end. But your war was fought and won with Grindelwald’s defeat, Credence, and dare I say you walked out quite the winner. People give me a lot of credit for the duel, but it was in no small part due to you and Percival that the duel took place and was won in the first place. I’m so proud of you both.”

Credence’s face lit up with a small but undoubtedly happy smile, a smile which delivered a hint of pleasant memories. Harry couldn’t help appreciating Dumbledore’s gratitude. And yet he felt immensely curious about this detail which was somehow missing from any mention of the infamous duel.

Another pause hung in the air. At long last the stranger opened his mouth, a question which obviously bothered him, slipping off his lips.

“How long do I have, sir?”

“The obscurus’ powers sustained you for much longer than even I have anticipated,” Dumbledore intertwined his fingers in thoughts. He frowned a little and then delivered a secret-sharing gaze, a small sad smile on his lips. “But I think if you wanted to, you could let go any time.”

Credence stood up abruptly, suddenly looking livelier than he was during the entire conversation. He was looking down at the floor with a frown and yet managing to smile at the same time. His large mouth opened, and he muttered under his breath.

“ _ Come to Me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest _ ,” he said quietly before bringing his gleaming gaze up to Dumbledore.

The real Dumbledore placed his hand on Harry’s shoulder and together they left the strange realm of the Pensieve. Harry staggered away from the bowl and steadied himself by holding onto the desk. Dumbledore went up to sit in his chair, looking at Harry expectantly.

“I’m not sure I know what this was about, sir,” Harry admitted.

“It was, Harry, a showcase of a very miserable child, whose past was akin to Tom Riddle’s, if not worse. And yet his heart was filled with love and not hatred, and his deeds were good. I merely wanted to show you an example of what love does to people.”

He sighed wearily and then smiled.

“For love, after all, is the strongest magic.”

Harry thought of the strange man in Dumbledore’s memory and the ring on his finger. He thought of his parents, of Sirius and the Marauders. Of Ron and Hermione.

“Did Credence live long after this conversation, sir?”

“He passed away the very next day. Painlessly and quite naturally, the healers said. They found him in his bed with fingers holding onto the wedding ring.”

Harry didn’t stop smiling, only bittersweet sadness in his chest with a touch of enormous relief.

***

Harry returned to the dormitory much later, full of conversations and thoughts about the strange man and Voldemort. Hermione and Ron were dozing off on the sofa before the dying out embers in the fireplace. They both woke up when Harry let in the light from the hall through the portrait entrance..

He had to collect his thoughts to convey the details of the meeting but all he managed to say was--

“What is an obscurus?”

Hermione and Ron exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“There haven’t been one for years,” Hermione said. Ron nodded. “It’s a… disease children with a magical gift develop, when they are trying to repress it. Usually it kills them before they even reach the age of 10. Why?”

Harry explained how he saw a memory of someone, living off the Obscurus’s powers, someone who was abused and betrayed, and how his past didn’t become his driving force. How instead, he turned it into a force of good will.

Hermione gave a small squeeing sound before running up the stairs to the girl’s room and returning with a thick copy of their “Fantastic Beasts” books. Harry and Ron looked at each other in confusion while Hermione flipped through pages to the last few. Those pages held magical pictures of the writer and his wife, a small dark haired woman, a grinning couple of a golden haired woman and her plumpy husband and at last a photo of two men, smiling brightly at the trio, their arms resting on each other’s waists. The younger man’s finger showed off a heavy ornate ring. The man who seemed older turned to plant a kiss on his fiance’s cheek. Harry pointed at the picture and scraped it with his nail.

“I saw him in the memory! Credence!”

Hermione pushed the volume closer to the fireplace, which burnt up brightly once more, and read out loud the line about the dedication.

“To my friends, who needed care as much as my beasts. Percival Graves and Credence Barebone, 1925, the wedding at the Brightstone Church,” Hermione looked up from the book. “Of course! Credence Barebone, the only known survivor of the Obscurial disease. I don’t know much about him though.”

“I saw him there, in the memory,” Harry repeated. He explained what Dumbledore told him about the young man who he lived in an abusive family for many years, was tricked by Grindelwald to be almost used as a destructive force and then he was supposedly murdered by the American aurors.”

Hermione’s nostrils widened furiously, Ron pulled himself up in disbelief.

“This is mental,” he muttered as Harry nodded in agreement.

“But he didn’t die. He managed to escape with Mr. Newt Scamander. Dumbledore said that Grindelwald stole the identity of a powerful wizard Percival Graves and that Credence and Scamander managed to recover him from imprisonment.”

“Percival Graves? I hear he used to be an auror.”

“A man to look up to, then.”


End file.
